Cook 30

Beetroot Risotto & Others

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jeremy Dixon

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Series Code: CKT

Program Code: CKT000049A


00:21 Welcome to Cook 30. I'm Jeremy Dixon from Revived Cafes in
00:25 Auckland, New Zealand and also author of the Revived Cafe
00:29 cook books. And today I'm really excited to be able to share with
00:33 you some Cafe style meals that you can cook at home.
00:36 Cook 30 foods is all about using whole foods.
00:39 We're going to be using plant based protein sources,
00:42 Whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables and wrapping it
00:46 altogether with international flavors and herbs and spices
00:50 And the best part, it does not have to take you hours slaving
00:53 away in your kitchen. I'm going to show you a great meal
00:56 combination in the next 30 minutes.
01:00 On the menu today we have a delicious beetroot and fennel
01:04 risotto with healthy parmesan cheese. We also have a
01:08 Mediterranean vegetable mango and garlicky cilantro chick peas
01:13 And to finish these amazing strawberry cheesecake glasses.
01:19 So doing meals in a short time doesn't happen by accident.
01:22 A little planning goes a long, long way.
01:25 Start with a clear work surface You've got a chopping board
01:28 a sharp knife, all the ingredients on the counter that
01:31 you're going to need. Pot's on the stove and we're ready
01:35 to start. So first job the thing that's going to take longest
01:38 So we're going to start with something that's gonna take
01:40 a while and we're going to start with the risotto
01:43 So I'm going to use the pot here I'm going to turn the flame on
01:46 Get it warmed up and we're gonna start with a nice base of onion
01:50 celery and garlic which is a great start for many, many
01:54 meals. So I'm going to chop this relatively finely
02:01 just like that
02:05 And this risotto we're gonna do in a couple of parts.
02:08 This risotto is probably not your conventional kind of
02:12 chef school risotto. Risotto can take many, many hours to
02:17 make. First a little bit of oil This is kind of a quick version
02:22 taking quite a few shortcuts. A French chef would probably
02:26 scorn on this recipe but I think it tastes really, really good
02:30 and it's really quick to make at home, so. I hope you'll
02:34 forgive me for that. Get some onions on
02:38 we're gonna put some garlic in as well.
02:40 So get a garlic crusher put the garlic in and just squeeze it
02:45 through like that, and we'll just take the garlic off
02:52 I'm going to add some celery as well. Celery goes really well
02:55 with onion. Oops that bit isn't fresh, we won't be using that
02:59 here we go, probably 2 bigger stalks or 3 smaller stalks
03:04 just going to nip off the ends they're slightly withered
03:10 and just going to chop these finely
03:12 just slit them in halves and when you're chopping if you can
03:16 economize on your cuts, so I'm just gonna do that
03:22 and that way I minimize the number of cuts. You can cut
03:25 a lot more at a time. You don't have to be cutting every
03:27 individual stalk individually.
03:29 So you put those guys in
03:32 have a party with the onions and the garlic
03:37 And turn it down to low and just give it a couple of
03:41 minutes just to soften up
03:43 and all the sweetness will come out of the celery and onion
03:49 and once you add water or stock to onions they kind of stop
03:53 becoming sweet so you want to make sure you get to that
03:55 state where they're caramelized and soft first.
04:00 Oh sorry, we've also got fennel seed, It's another spice or herb
04:06 we're gonna add. Fennel seed is a lovely, it kinda looks like
04:09 this, it's kind of a lovely aniseedy kind of taste when you
04:14 bite into it in a dish and get the occasional kind of fennel
04:17 like, it adds a bit of zing to meals. So adding a tablespoon
04:20 of fennel seed in here as well. You wanna just, kind of get up
04:24 the heat and the heat will help activate flavors in the fennel
04:30 Now to go with this we've got a really nice alternative to
04:32 parmesan cheese and I'm gonna call it parmeshew cheese
04:36 cause we're gonna use cashew nuts. Very simple recipe,
04:39 you can make it once and leave it in your refrigerator and
04:41 it will last weeks. So start with a cup of cashew nuts
04:48 and a good tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes
04:53 That's a very good tablespoon
04:55 and we're just going to blend it in the blender.
04:56 That's all we need to do.
05:01 That's about enough. We don't want to do too much
05:03 or it becomes moist and clumping together.
05:07 And basically, the little fine powder is a really nice
05:12 alternative to parmesan cheese
05:18 Getting most of it out there.
05:20 I need a spoon to help it along
05:23 So if you blend it for more than what I did then
05:26 a whole lot will become stuck to the bottom like that
05:29 so you want to blend it for a relatively short time
05:35 It's just a nice salty, creamy kind of texture
05:38 and we'll stir some of it in the risotto near the end
05:40 and also have it as a garnish on top
05:42 It's an accompaniment you can add on top as well
05:45 It's all done, we'll leave it to the side. It's something
05:48 we've got done now and we don't have to worry about later
05:53 Okay back to the onions, they're softening up nicely,
05:59 may not be perfect but at least I've got the raw edge off them
06:04 So we're now going to add some ingredients from the fridge
06:07 And I'm actually going to add some precooked short grain rice
06:12 I usually use long grain rice because it's a lot quicker to
06:15 to cook. Short grain rice probably takes 30-40 minutes
06:18 So I generally precook short grain rice. We've got about
06:21 3 cups here. I'm going to put it in here to join the onions and
06:26 the celery and short grain rice is kind of more of a risotto
06:31 kind of rice, whereas long grain rice you generally have under
06:34 curries and things. You could use long grain rice it's not
06:36 essential but traditionally risotto will have more kind of
06:38 better rice texture to it and we're gonna add some stock
06:43 to this as well. I've got some organic vegetable broth.
06:46 Make sure you find a good stock. We want round about 2 cups
06:53 although leave some on the side you might want to add a bit more
06:56 later depending on how the texture goes near the end.
06:58 So 2 cups is kind of a good starter amount. We want all
07:02 that lovely stock to be kind of infused into the rice.
07:05 Also I've got some, you can buy beetroot that's pre cooked
07:08 so I've got some of these little beetroot
07:10 I'm just gonna, I must open it over the sink it might go
07:13 everywhere, here we go
07:20 I think it's just gonna go everywhere anyway
07:23 So we've got some beetroot or beets depending on what country
07:29 you're in. These are just pre cooked and really convenient
07:32 You can also put some beetroot in a pot yourself and cook them
07:35 either way it doesn't matter. We're just gonna cut these up
07:39 Really roughly.
07:42 No kind of format or anything just very rustically
07:49 You're saving time using these precooked ones is a good way
07:51 of keeping the program under 30 minutes of course
07:56 So lovely and rustically chopped
08:00 I'm going to put these into the rice and the stock
08:08 and the color and the flavor will infuse through all of that
08:13 I'll just turn it up a bit so we can bring it back to a boil
08:18 and stir it through. This looks very, not interesting at this
08:24 stage but give it 20 minutes for all those flavors and colors
08:28 to mingle together and hopefully by the end of it, we'll have a
08:31 really nice risotto.
08:33 So second job underway. I'll just clear off the board
08:38 so we're ready for our next recipe. Don't want beetroot
08:42 getting on everything. Beetroot stains are reasonably permanent
08:51 So two irksome jobs underway
08:55 Next we're gonna start on the cheesecake
08:58 and when you say cheesecake everyone's eyes light up,
09:01 everyone loves cheesecake. This is a lovely healthy version
09:03 I'm using nuts and dried fruit. So we want to do the base first
09:07 We're going to actually make it in these little glasses
09:10 rather than do cheesecake in a big kind of a pan or something
09:14 We'll do it in glasses. So we're gonna start with the base
09:17 And base would traditionally be sugary biscuits and condensed
09:21 milk and stuff like that. We're just gonna make it with almonds
09:24 and dates. So we're gonna use a cup of almonds
09:29 And just put them into the food processor, that's about a cup
09:34 and about a three quarter cup of dates
09:38 You can probably substitute other nuts and fruits as well
09:42 but I know the date almond thing works reasonably well
09:47 That's about three quarters of a cup there. One more here we go
09:52 Going to add a couple of table spoons of shredded coconut
09:57 make sure it's unsweetened
10:00 And we're just going to blend this.
10:03 Or process it. You could make the mixture in a normal kind of
10:06 blender like this but because you need to have liquids
10:09 happening in this so cause it's a kind of a dry base
10:11 you do need a food processor for it.
10:14 We're gonna get it underway just give it a few seconds
10:18 just to mush around. Meanwhile keep this stirring.
10:22 It's kind of boiling now.
10:25 So I'll just turn it down a little bit.
10:32 You kind of want the rice to be covered in stock.
10:36 So probably add round about 3cups
10:39 Every time you make risotto it's kind of different
10:44 Here we go, look at that.
10:48 Let's go to the almond base
10:51 As you can see that's lovely and kind of want it a bit more
10:54 stuck together so I'm going to add a bit more fruit
10:57 and that's going to help it stick together so.
10:59 Again these bases turn out different every time
11:02 depending on the ingredients.
11:03 Just a few more dates will add a bit more moisture
11:06 So hopefully the bit more will help it stick together.
11:09 Because it's a cheesecake, it's reasonably fixable.
11:19 And what we're gonna do now is extract the blade out
11:24 Be careful of the blades. They can be very, very sharp.
11:27 Cut my fingers on them many times.
11:31 And we're just gonna scoop out some of this mixture
11:35 and put it in the glasses. This is gonna be your base
11:44 Just like that.
11:47 So you probably want round about perhaps a third of the glass
11:53 to be there. I've done more than I need, so you can actually make
11:57 probably more than 4 glasses,
11:58 we could make a little cheesecake as well
12:01 I'm going to press it down a little bit not excessively
12:06 just enough to be a base.
12:11 You could use nice wine glasses for this with stems, or
12:14 there are many lovely different glasses you can get
12:19 You don't want it to be too hard like a proper cheesecake base
12:22 it doesn't need to be transported anywhere or sliced
12:24 you want your guests to be able to dig through and enjoy it
12:28 so we don't want to push it down too hard, just enough so
12:33 here we go. It's kind of stable
12:42 A little bit even, nearly. So you probably actually make a few
12:46 more later if you wanted. So this is the base and
12:49 now the strawberry filling which is the most important part
12:52 Now this has an ingredient coconut oil, I'm just gonna
12:55 put a little pan on the stove here, I'm gonna put coconut
12:58 oil in this. Coconut oil is liquid when it's hot
13:03 and goes really, really hard when it's cold.
13:05 So we're gonna put round about 3 tablespoons
13:09 So this is quite a high, kind of rich dessert. You don't want
13:14 huge amounts. So I'm going to put 2-3 tablespoons
13:21 I'll just melt that briefly and we're going to pour it in
13:25 or it'll harden up. I'm going to start now, it'll take
13:27 about 30 seconds to melt down
13:32 And we're going to start the strawberry filling.
13:35 So we have some frozen strawberries
13:38 We just want, let me check my recipe here, round about 1 cup
13:42 of frozen strawberries. And these are frozen, but I've had
13:46 them out of the fridge probably 10 minutes to soften them
13:48 up a bit so that they're not 100% hard
13:54 That's a good cup. Then we're gonna have some cashew nuts
13:59 So we want one and a half cup of cashews
14:07 And we want some water, about three quarter cup of water
14:13 I'm going to add 2 tablespoons of honey. Strawberries are
14:16 generally a little bit acidic so we usually need a bit of
14:20 sweetener just to kind of carry them through
14:21 And I also have some limes here
14:25 We're going to have some lime juice and we want quite a few
14:27 limes. So we want round about 4 tablespoons and you get
14:31 round about a tablespoon per lime or lemon.
14:35 Although it does vary considerably.
14:43 Rice is bubbling away
14:46 I love the challenge in the kitchen of having many dishes
14:48 on the go at a time. Really kind of, your brain has to
14:51 really get around everything.
14:52 It's quite a challenge to have everything going but timing
14:55 in restaurants and cafes and home is probably the main thing
14:58 a little bit of planning, thinking ahead what's coming
15:00 next, what do I have to do next
15:03 So that coconut oil is pretty much melted so
15:05 it started off being a white kind of oil now it's all thin
15:10 So we're going to put it in there like that
15:13 If you didn't heat up the oil it would just become like little
15:17 white flakes which is what we don't want
15:19 And now we're going to blend it
15:37 It kinda looks like a smoothie at this stage
15:39 so just pour this over in these glasses
15:42 over this base
15:44 and that is a lovely cheese cake mixture
15:48 Go on low to start with, you don't want to
15:54 There's a few little lumps in there, it's no problem
15:56 a little bit of rusticness it's not the end of the world
16:01 you don't want to under fill I might've done that there
16:04 I have to adjust that later
16:07 I'll show you a trick, we'll just get a spoon
16:10 and just share some. I do this with a lot of recipes
16:14 Just share evenly. You don't want to be the person
16:18 up with the cheesecake that isn't quite as full as the rest
16:23 Here we go, let's even it up
16:25 We can't create arguments at the dinner table.
16:28 So these are gonna go in the freezer
16:30 and the reason for that is we want them to harden up and
16:33 coconut oil makes it nice and hard like cheesecake
16:36 and in about 20 minutes or so it should be ready to serve
16:42 If you just joined us on Cook 30 we are making a beetroot and
16:46 fennel risotto with a healthy parmeshew cheese
16:49 A Mediterranean vegetable mingle and these lovely garlicky
16:55 cilantro chickpeas. And to finish off strawberry cheesecake
17:00 glasses. So now we want to do the vegetables.
17:04 So we're going to put this pan on relatively hot to start with
17:07 I've just got some Mediterranean vegetables here
17:10 which consists of peppers, zucchini, onions and asparagus
17:17 really colorful ones as well
17:18 So you want them to be colorful so you'll cook them lightly
17:23 so they're kind of just soft but they're still going to
17:25 retain their shape and color
17:27 So the onions are going first cause they take the longest
17:30 and we want to retain this lovely purpleness
17:34 so we're going to cut them nice and big. So we start with
17:38 a bit of olive oil
17:41 and put these in here, first vegetable down
17:46 it's mainly just the chopping
17:48 session. So we've got these lovely bell peppers
17:55 or capsicum, we call them capsicum in New Zealand
17:58 Just rip out the tops
18:00 So when you're preparing vegetables you kind of wanna
18:02 always have one side of your board that's got the stuff
18:05 that's ready to chop and one side that has all the stuff
18:08 that's in progress and get rid of all the things you don't want
18:10 to have in your food, first, like all the seeds and ends of
18:14 things and then you have a board that's full of stuff that
18:19 you can put on and you can chop freely now that everything else
18:21 is available. So now we're going to chop these into cubes
18:27 So we want these to be kind of feature ingredients, we don't
18:30 want them to melt away but be nice, crispy, flavorsome
18:33 so it's going to be cooked just enough so the sweetness is
18:36 coming out of them but not so much that they're kind of soggy
18:39 and limp and lose their color.
18:42 So you probably want 5 minutes max is what you're after
18:48 And again the rule for any kind of dish is lots of color
18:52 Now depending on the season these vegetables can sometimes
18:54 be expensive so you can substitute them with other
18:57 vegetables if you want but this kind of Mediterranean
18:59 combination of is actually quite a nice one.
19:03 We're not using any kind of vegetable that's gonna go soggy
19:09 like cabbage or anything like that. You want everything to
19:12 remain nice and crisp and crunchy.
19:17 Give it a stir around
19:23 Got a zucchini or courgette
19:27 and my favorite way of cutting these is in cross cuts. Cut in
19:30 half and just alternate cuts. They look kind of random
19:35 in a kind of organized way
19:43 So we've got red, yellow, orange green and purple.
19:46 So that's kind of a rainbow
19:47 For asparagus you wanna just break it sort of near the end
19:51 and they'll naturally break off where the woody section begins
19:56 and the soft section begins so. You don't want the ends of the
19:59 asparagus are very hard and unpleasant to chew
20:02 I'm just gonna keep the nice form and chop those in half
20:07 They go in there
20:11 Give it a stir around. You want it nice and hot and quick
20:15 Just gonna start warming up this pan for our next dish
20:19 I'm also going to put some garlic in
20:21 I must find my garlic press
20:24 and that will add some extra body to them as well
20:28 Garlic can burn easily so kind of put it in last
20:32 It will get cooked through but it's not really with the initial
20:37 kind of pace that happens with the onions
20:42 Here you go, lovely
20:46 And what we'll do at the end of this we'll garnish it with some
20:48 nice kind of olives and it will kind of finish it off
20:50 while the vegetables finish cooking
20:52 I'll turn the flame down so it doesn't burn
20:55 and do keep an eye on it, we're multi-tasking here
21:00 Now the next dish uses chickpeas or garbanzo beans
21:04 and the way I love to cook my garbanzo beans is I cook a big
21:08 pot up and I put them all into containers like this
21:11 in the freezer and they're available to use whenever you
21:13 want. So they basically sit in the freezer for months on end
21:16 kinda become a sort of block. Just throw them in a colander
21:22 and put some hot water through it
21:24 Within a very short time you can actually defrost them
21:27 it only takes a couple of minutes
21:30 You can cook this dish with fresh chickpeas or canned ones
21:33 but this is the best way. In my freezer at home I have probably
21:37 at any time 10 or 20 little containers full of chickpeas
21:40 and other beans that I can use anytime.
21:43 They taste fresher. I think I've done the costing once and
21:46 the cost is a quarter of the price of buying them canned
21:49 you can save a lot of money and the convenience is there
21:52 and it's lovely and fresh
21:56 In probably 30 seconds and those chickpeas are almost as good as
22:00 though they've just been cooked fresh.
22:02 We're going to put them in here
22:05 And this is a recent recipe. I actually discovered it by
22:08 accident one day when I cooked my chickpeas
22:10 I thought these chickpeas are lovely
22:12 and soft and delicious I just want to try
22:14 them so I put them in a pan with these ingredients
22:17 and within seconds this is actually really nice
22:19 it's really simple. Just a little bit of olive oil
22:23 Again, just one or two teaspoons
22:25 Put a little bit of salt, about quarter to half teaspoon salt
22:30 and again you want to flavor it to taste
22:33 and I'm going to start just cooking that
22:38 The ingredient that makes this really special is the garlic
22:42 So again I'm getting the garlic press
22:45 I'll take the skin out from the previous use. There's a bit of
22:49 garlic in this meal and garlic is a wonderful ingredient
22:52 If you don't like it, it's probably not the first recipe
22:56 you want to cook. You want 6 lovely big cloves of garlic
23:04 It's going to mingle with the chickpeas really nicely
23:06 Let's get the other garlic skins out, or most of them
23:12 and do another three cloves
23:14 You can chop your garlic really finely if you want
23:17 this is just a great time saving tip.
23:30 Again, you don't want the garlic to burn
23:32 I'll just give these guys a stir
23:35 Just to kind of mingle with the chickpeas that are nice and soft
23:45 Look at that
23:48 Bring out the heat
23:51 I'd better salt these vegetables as well,
23:52 again, just a light bit of salt
23:56 Just probably quarter to half a teaspoon
24:04 I'm just going to turn this down a moment, as you can see
24:06 these are getting lovely and crisp, probably need a few more
24:10 minutes to cook them through just to make the difference
24:12 between being raw and being nice and cooked
24:14 and crisp. Don't you just love the color?
24:17 And if we'd even just missed out the zucchini and asparagus
24:20 this would be a like a totally different dish
24:22 with different colors.
24:25 Turn it down. Look at the risotto, how's it going?
24:27 As you can see, look at this, kind of creamy nearly it's
24:30 kind of all cooked through and the rice has absorbed all of
24:33 that lovely stock and a really nice concentrated flavor
24:37 So we're now going to add the parmeshew cheese
24:39 we made before and we're going to spoon in round about
24:44 perhaps four tablespoons
24:47 go for an extra one, make it 5 tablespoons
24:49 Just gonna stir it through just like in risotto you would
24:52 stir through parmesan cheese which will melt
24:54 this lovely parmeshew cheese will kind of add a really nice
24:58 flavor from the nutritional yeast and you've got the lovely
25:01 creaminess of the cashews and you can see that's turned it
25:04 from a just like a rice dish and it kind of just adds that
25:08 creaminess which is the hallmark of a risotto
25:13 So I'm just going to serve it in this lovely white dish
25:18 Guess it's not hot, just serve it in, pour it in
25:25 here you go, come on. Can be risky doing this
25:28 the whole lot can go at once
25:33 Kind of pace it out, let gravity do its work
25:37 Create a bit of mound, we always go for height when presenting
25:40 just like that
25:43 Gas is off. And we add a bit of garnish in there and some more
25:46 parmeshew cheese and that will be lovely.
25:49 These chick peas are getting there so what we're gonna do
25:51 with those in the break is add some more herbs
25:54 and put them in this lovely blue dish
25:56 and we're going to present these as they are
26:00 Pull the cheese cakes out of the freezer
26:01 and our meal is complete.


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Revised 2016-11-09